10/01/2012

Autodesk Inventor: Tube and Pipe Configurations

I'm just going to give you a heads up on this one, its not a topic I run into that often, this tip is for the niche type of user that wants to build configurated iAssembly tables while also using Inventor's Tube and Pipe module for Routed Systems. Strap on your modeling cap, this will get heavy on the vocab. If you have not used Tube and Pipe or iAssemblies, might be a good time to smile and nod but soak in the concept here.

Your configurated design may call for a master runs assembly to adapt to different assembly configurations. In some cases, it is sufficient for the master runs assembly to remain non-adaptive. To swap in a specific master runs assembly, you can create a tube and pipe interchangeability set for the entire iAssembly factory. This is another complete set of files for the Master Runs assembly and you will see your open file size grow to accomodate the programming behind this.

During the iAssembly factory conversion, the existing or newly created master runs assembly is automatically included with an adaptive status as normal child components. When a new configuration row is added, a non-adaptive occurrence of the master runs assembly is automatically included for the new configuration. A Tube and pipe interchangeability set is not created until the Make Adaptive command is applied to the non-adaptive master runs assembly in which you will prompted for the new file names for the additional files.

This configuration is the same set of files with an interchange adaptive set in place to accomodate the change to the location of the Valves and Blocks. We can also delete runs and add runs without affecting the original Master Runs assembly because each iAssembly member would be working on the new interchange set instead. For this reason it is also imperative that you adjust Factory and Member scope for editing as necessary for your design.

You can also determine to do either of the following to meet your design needs:

Use the Make Adaptive command to transition it into the tube and pipe interchangeability set.

Leave it as non-adaptive so that it dynamically responds to edits on the parent adaptive master runs assembly.

Each configuration can contain either a tube and pipe interchangeability set member or a non-adaptive master runs assembly. As with normal Inventor iComponents, the master runs assembly member can be set to Include/Exclude, Grounded/Ungrounded, and Adaptive/Non-adaptive for each configuration.

Take a couple minutes and check out the usage in this video I created below.

Comments

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Hi Mark.
Great video.
Is there a tutorial pdf how to set this up.
We work with distribution pipes which are different T-couplings which we want to put on and off.
We have tried different ways with iLogic but that is still not satisfactory.

We actually have this topic (although not the files you see above) in our Inventor Tube and Pipe Course available from the ASCENT store. Go to ascented.com to learn more. It has a basic example of this and how to set it up near the end of the course.